


Take Care When Caretaking

by FriendshipCastle



Series: Between Scenes [7]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Gore, Self-Esteem Issues, T for swears and sex talk, gross puberty horniness, second chapter has spoilers for final battle in Fourth Ninja War, suicide is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-21 08:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4822001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything I've ever written about Naruto had Rin alive in it, so here's her living her life, not letting Kakashi forget that there are people who care about his wellbeing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. seven-eleven-fifteen-eighteen-twenty one-twenty five-twenty seven

Rin was seven and she was going to marry Hatake Kakashi and Obito was going to be her best man. She’d drawn a picture of their wedding and everything. Kakashi kept his mask on but he put a bow on it because he was dressing up for her. He was wearing a pretty dress and Rin was wearing a pretty dress and Obito had a pretty dress too. Obito had his Sharingan, too, so he’d be happy. Everyone was smiling, though she’d had to draw a smile over Kakashi’s mask. Maybe they could tape a paper smile on him for the wedding picture.

Rin’s mother wanted to hang the drawing on the fridge. Rin refused. “I’m gonna give it to Kakashi,” she said. She needed excuses to go visit him. He had graduated to chunin last year and he was already getting assigned to missions! With adults! It was amazing. Rin missed him, though. Sometimes he came and played with them at the park and that was fun, but it had been nice to see him in class. He always had such a cool way of doing things. The teachers would tell them how to throw shuriken and then Rin would shuffle closer to Kakashi and he’d tell her how his dad taught him to throw shuriken. Mister Hatake was good at teaching. It was probably why Kakashi had made it to chunin so fast. Rin was practicing really, really hard so she could join him.

She trotted over to the Hatake house but no one was home. She folded up her drawing carefully and wrote Kakashi’s name on it, then added the little face that he sometimes doodled next to his name. Rin slid the drawing between the door screens and went home.

The next time she saw Kakashi, she was so excited she ran up and asked, “Did you see my picture of our wedding? I left it at your house, but—”

Kakashi looked at her and Rin realized that he looked… Faces weren’t supposed to look like that. Only really old ninjas looked like that, with their eyes all blank and their faces so still.

“What’s wrong?” Rin asked.

“I don’t live there anymore.”

“Oh.” Rin tried not to pout. She’d worked really hard on that drawing. She could make another, though. “Where do you live now? Can I come over and see it?”

Kakashi squinted at her suspiciously. “Why?”

“Because we’re friends,” Rin said. “And I’m gonna marry you later, so I should see your house and see if you have any crayons.”

“Oh. Sure, I guess.” He turned and started walking.

Rin clasped her hands behind her back and bobbed along beside him. He wasn’t wearing his scarf today. Ninja fashion was more often dictated by image rather than weather, but it was barely spring. It was still scarf weather. Rin was wearing her favorite sweater over a skirt and leggings and leg warmers and ankle boots and she was still kind of cold. She didn’t ask, though.

“Here,” Kakashi said. He stepped out of his shoes on the doorstep and slumped through the door. Rin hadn’t realized his posture was getting bad.

“My rival!” someone yelled.

Might Guy skidded down the hall in stocking feet and underwear and nothing else. He locked eyes with Rin, let out the girliest shriek she had ever heard in her life, and pedaled his legs like mad to get behind the nearest door.

“You live with Guy?” Rin said slowly.

“Yeah. Until they find me an apartment. I sent in a request.”

Rin looked over at him. Kakashi was giving her a side-eyed look that dared her to ask.

“Why does his underwear have turtles on it?” she said.

Kakashi blinked, then said, “Family reasons.”

“Oh. And why are you here now?”

Kakashi’s eyes slid away. “My dad died.”

“Oh.” Rin thought for a moment, then stepped over and carefully put her arms around him. She telegraphed every move, just like she used to do with her dad. Experienced ninjas didn’t like people touching them without warning, and Kakashi was a ninja. She felt him stiffen anyway under her touch, and he didn’t return the hug. She let him go.

He was watching her. “Thanks.”

Rin nodded, smiling at him as best she could. “I’m sorry, Kakashi.”

“It’s…” He shook his head. “You want to see my room?”

“Yeah!”

He waved at her to follow and shuffled down the hall. As they passed an open doorway, Rin peeked in. Guy was staring at them, but he shrieked again as her eyes dipped to his turtle boxers. He fled.

Kakashi gave her an odd look when she started laughing, but she couldn’t help herself.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Rin was eleven and her best friend, her teammate, he was dead. It was a war and now it hurt more than ever.

Kakashi kept twitching himself awake on the battlefield, hands shaking and breath coming in gasps. Whenever Rin heard him start trembling in the night, she’d drag her blanket over and sleep beside him, on top of his blanket and under hers. Minato-sensei didn’t say anything about it on the mornings he woke them up. Kakashi didn’t say anything about it either.

Kakashi kept his forehead protector over his left eye at all times now. She caught him clawing at it in his sleep. She changed his bandages every day and monitored the chakra drain. It was bad. She’d done a good job with the tear duct, though. He could cry out of that eye if he wanted to. She hadn’t caught him testing it yet.

Rin cried. She did it quietly and efficiently. She’d learned that everything could be done quietly and efficiently in a war, from throwing up to making new friends to dispensing death. So Rin cried when they were near enough to clean water that she wouldn’t risk dehydration.

“Stop that,” Kakashi told her.

Rin blew her nose and blinked at him until he was no longer a blur but her teammate. “Why?”

Kakashi shifted his weight from foot to foot. “It’s not… A ninja does not show tears.”

“So don’t watch,” she said. She waved at where their teacher was speaking to the Tactical Infiltration team. “Minato-sensei doesn’t look.”

“You still shouldn’t show weakness,” Kakashi said.

“I don’t see why it’s weak,” Rin said. She blew her nose again.

“Controlling emotions is strength,” Kakashi said.

“Obito’s dead,” Rin said.

Kakashi blinked. “Y-yeah.”

“I wish he wasn’t,” Rin said.

Kakashi turned away from her.

“I can check your eye again if it’s hurting,” Rin said.

“It’s fine,” Kakashi said.

Rin sighed. “All right.” She wiped her eyes. “Come on, Sensei’s almost done.”

Kakashi looked back to where Minato-sensei was speaking quietly with one of the other ninjas, a woman with painfully red hair. “How can you tell?”

“He always talks with her last,” Rin said. “They’re in love.”

The red-haired woman smacked their teacher on the shoulder and laughed loudly at something he said, then bounded off in the opposite direction of the rest of the team.

“How can you tell?” Kakashi said again.

“Minato-sensei’s easy to read.”

Minato-sensei watched the red-haired ninja go with one of his faint smiles, then turned towards his students.

“But how can you tell?” Kakashi asked for a third time.

Rin looked at him. He was squinting at their teacher with his lone dark eye. His hands were fists by his side, empty of all weapons, lightning, soldier pills… He looked so lost.

Kakashi was a genius ninja. Everyone talked about how strong he was at such a young age. He was already a jonin and he’d made a new jutsu and he was barely in his teens. Yet somehow he couldn’t see the way Minato-sensei and that red-haired jonin circled each other, never quite touching but coming very close on occasion. How Minato-sensei always turned towards her. How she turned her back but kept him in her peripherals. The way their voices sounded together, where hers got louder and his got quieter until they were the only ones left talking to each other after every other assignment had been handed out. They were in love, it was simple as that. 

“Women’s intuition,” Rin said. The way Kakashi’s hands uncurled and his brow smoothed to indifference was her reward for such a lie. Kakashi couldn’t see what was right in front of his face when it came to people caring. Maybe he’d learn.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Rin was fifteen and she was afraid her teammate was going to die, in spite of how good he seemed to be at surviving.

Minato-sensei was gone so she couldn’t drop by his place for dinner to talk things over with him and his secret girlfriend that no one was supposed to know about, Uzumaki Kushina (the red-headed kunoichi—Rin was still infinitely smug that she’d known before Kakashi). She didn’t want to bring it up with Guy, either, because Guy was terrible at feelings. The Sandaime was preoccupied and it was unlikely he’d even really do anything. He didn’t seem to pay attention to ANBU and what they were getting up to.

Rin stayed long past the end of her hospital shift, treating for shock when Kakashi came in with chakra exhaustion. She held his cold hands through the shakes, kept his core temperature up, cleaned his scrapes as best she could. She fixed his eye when her old field transplant got infected (twice). She also dealt with all the strange personal problems that started arriving with alarming regularity once Kakashi hit puberty: odd rashes under his clothes, a few mild STIs and urinary tract infections, marks around his throat and wrists that he didn’t explain.

“You could just masturbate like the average teen boy does,” she suggested. "With porn and your hand and some tissues."

He gave Rin a long, blank look. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Kakashi wasn’t like a brother to her. She wouldn’t want to know a brother this well. 

Sometimes, when his head hit her shoulder and he started snoring in her ear, Rin would finish healing his bruises and then dig through his pack for the porn he always had with him. Pen in hand, she’d doodle the various improbable positions that the author described (and wasn’t that Minato-sensei’s old teacher, one of the Sannin, on the dust jacket?). She questioned the physical descriptions in little notes, too.

_Kash, no way this works unless he’s got a 20cm prehensile dick. I know you’d be interested but it’s super improbable._

There was no way he’d talk to her about his problems. There was no way he’d discuss his feelings, either. She knew this about Kakashi, the same way she knew Guy would always bounce back from Kakashi’s rejections. Normally it didn’t worry her too much—she could keep things light, she could tease him and watch him deadpan his way out of tricky emotional ground. They were friends, after all. Rin liked his company.

Now, though, she wished he had someone he could go to when he felt sad, and yet she knew he didn’t have anyone. His friend group consisted of her and Guy. No one else even came close.  
How do you tell a friend that they need help when there’s nowhere you can send them to get help?

Rin’s mother had been out of the ninja game after losing most of her left arm and a significant portion of her face to an explosive tag in the second war. Rin’s father had survived that war (Rin was proof of this) but vanished one day, which usually meant he’d been ANBU and he’d died somewhere sensitive. His records would become public in twenty years. Rin wasn’t expecting her mother to last that long. 

As the only Nohara ninja in her generation, Rin was feeling the pressure to keep doing fieldwork. Her family wasn’t established or prestigious enough to have a clan jutsu the way the Hatake did. They didn’t have kekkei genkai like the Hyuugas. They had their clan tattoos, though, and all the adults had plenty of pride. They wanted her to keep taking missions so she could make jonin just like her teammate. She really didn’t want to. The idea of leaving the village, venturing out into that wide and violent world, made her feel a kind of emptiness in her stomach. Her hands tingled at the memory of summoning chakra to heal life-or-death wounds. She remembered her teammates’ backs to her, protecting her but never quite enough to make her feel safe. Outside Konoha was not safe.

“Is there somewhere for ninjas to talk to people?” Rin asked her mother as she helped make dinner. 

“What do you mean, Dimples?” her mother said.

Rin rolled her eyes at the old nickname but let it go. “Like if you feel weird after missions or something, I don’t know. Talking about being a ninja with people who get it.”

“I think that Torture and Interrogation has something for reporting out-of-the ordinary events, and the Yamanaka clan can help reorder your mind after a genjutsu if it was a complex illusion, but—”

“Nothing that’s so ninja related,” Rin sighed. “I mean just, like, um.” She tried to think of what she wanted. “Like a complaints box but in person.”

“The Sandime’s busy, you know,” her mother said.

“Not _him_ , just _someone_ ,” Rin said.

Her mother frowned at her. “No need to be snippy.”

“Sorry. But is there—?”

“Not that I know of,” her mother said. “Could you get the dishes out for me? Your aunt is coming over, so set another place. I think she’s bringing you some new kunai.”

“Sure,” Rin said, pasting on a smile. “Great.” 

And that was it. Kakashi was on his own, just as Rin was on her own. They were within the Will of Fire but sometimes it actually felt like they were dealing with a fire—something remote and uncaring, ignoring them to crackle away merrily. Until it suddenly flared up. Fire could take a life. Their ideology had taken lives. 

Rin scribbled a furious poem about how the Will of Fire was dying coals fed by the terrors and deaths of shinobi. She lit a match and burned that poem up once it was written. If any of the Noharas had found it, she would have been in so much trouble.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Rin was eighteen and she was seeing a ghost.

“Sensei?” she whispered before she even realized she’d spoken aloud.

The fuzzy blonde head turned and it was far too small to her her teacher. It was a little boy, bewhiskered cheeks smudged with dirt. He was bruised, too; she could see the purple swells around his eyes from here. They were eyes like her teacher’s.

When he spoke, he was as loud as Kushina. “I’m Uzumaki Naruto, yanno!”

Rin took a shaky breath. “All right, kiddo. What’s the matter?”

“Broke m’toe,” he said, holding out his bare foot. He had to be close to five years old by now…

“I don’t see. Um.” Rin wiped her eyes and shook her head. “Does it hurt?”

“Nah,” Naruto said. “Hey, you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Rin said, and then a blubbery sob burst out of her and she hiccuped. “I’m sorry. Um. I’ll look at it, just…” Her voice was getting choked off and high but she finished, “give me a moment.” She ducked out of the room and wept into her hands for twenty seconds, then shut off the wellspring with control she hadn’t needed since the Third War. She marched back in and healed Uzumaki Naruto’s broken toe in a flash, softened his bruises, and sent him away with an orange lollipop that he gazed at with wonder and delight. 

Rin did not pat his head as he left. She did not try to hold him. She did have to take another minute to herself after the consultation was done to weep. The rest of her shift was uneventful—accidental self-inflicted shuriken wounds and a few training-related accidents.

She went back to her shoebox apartment in the chunin/jonin barracks. Since she’d taken herself off the active duty register years ago there was some debate about whether she should be able to live there. The Sandaime seemed to conveniently lose any complaints her family lodged against her for moving out and pursing medicine instead of furthering the ninja reputation of her clan. Rin’s jonin friends dealt with anyone who complained about her within the building itself. 

She sat down at her kitchen table with a stack of reports that needed reading and a mug of tea with a bit of liquor in it. The reports got read and annotated because she wasn’t Kakashi, she was capable of completing all her assigned tasks in a timely fashion. The tea disappeared rather quickly, though, and it was replaced by another mug with substantially more liquor in it.

Well past dinnertime, she knocked on Kakashi’s door. The hold-your-breath silence inside indicated he was definitely home.

She yelled, “Stop jerking off, you jerk-off! I’m coming in!” and slipped through Kakashi’s various security measures to find him buttoning his pants sulkily.

“Mood ruined,” he said.

“Yeah yeah yeah, come get food with me,” Rin said.

“No.”

“I’ll buy.”

“Okay.”

Kakashi slumped a few steps behind her all the way to the corner store and back to her room with protein-filled vanilla yogurt and salted snacks in hand. He sat at the foot of her bed and she propped her feet on his lap as they ate in silence.

“I saw the pariah today,” Rin said.

“Hm?”

“The Jinchuriki.”

Kakashi gave her a sharp look. “Mm.”

“He’s Sensei’s kid for sure.”

Kakashi stuffed more food in his face.

“He may be turning six soon, I don’t know. He’s little. And loud. More like Kushina than Sensei. But he’s got these whiskers on his face… Kushina never had those. I had to heal him up a bit, he wouldn’t say why. I think people are hurting him.” Rin wiped at her eyes for the third time today. 

Kakashi wasn’t looking at her. He had that tension to him that meant she was making him incredibly uncomfortable, but Rin didn’t take her feet from his lap. He was going to have to sit there and listen to her talk about this.

“He’s so little,” Rin continued. “And he’s got no idea, thanks to the Sandaime. Don’t you think that’s fucked up, keeping something like that from him? He doesn’t know why everyone’s so uncomfortable when he’s around. How is that fair?”

Kakashi was actually twisting all the way around so she could onlly the back of his head. He wasn’t using Substitution Technique to get away, though. Rin cut him a break.

“When are you leaving next?” she asked.

Kakashi shrugged, still not looking at her.

“You can turn around, you know. I won’t make it weird anymore.”

“You already made it weird,” Kakashi said, but he did return to his food so at least she got to see half his face. She’d arranged it so that he had to show her the exposed right eye. His gaze was unfocused, zoned out and dead-looking.

“Fuck anyone hot lately?” she asked, since it was one of his favorite topics.

“Just myself,” Kakashi said. He didn’t sound happy about it.

Rin frowned and shuffled around until she was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “You okay?”

Kakashi shrugged. 

“Were you down by the Memorial Stone?”

Kakashi nodded, a tight jerk of his head.

“That time of year?”

Another nod.

“We must be like ships passing in the night, huh?” Rin offered. “I never see you there and you never see me there.”

“It’s been a while,” Kakashi said quietly.

“For some.”

Kakashi blinked at her. “Oh. Right. Your mom.”

“Yes, Kakashi, my mom. Almost three months now.”

“My condolences.”

Rin flapped a hand. “She was so pissed off at me for not taking your route and going for jonin.”

Kakashi nodded slowly. It seemed he was back to not holding up his side of the conversation.

“Everyone was mad, actually,” Rin continued. “There was yelling.”

“I remember,” Kakashi said. “I helped you move out.”

“Yeah,” Rin said. “Not my point, though.”

“You had a point?”

Rin smacked him on the shoulder. “Dick. Yes I had a point. And the point was, you saw what a shitshow that was, right? Me quitting the ninja way?”

“You didn’t quit,” Kakashi said. “You’re a medic now.”

“I am never leaving this village again,” Rin told him. “I haven’t left since our last mission together. I’m not a kunoichi anymore.”

There was a silence filled with all the protests Kakashi could have made and all the yelling Rin could have done. They knew each other better than that.

“Anyway,” Rin said, “you’ve seen the worst possible response to leaving the ninja life, so if you wanted to quit you can be sure it would be easier than—”

“Why didn’t you ask one of your other friends over for dinner?” Kakashi asked her. “If you were going to bitch at me about my life choices you could have saved yourself a food bill.”

“I’m just saying it’s an option.”

Kakashi shuffled himself off her bed. “No. It’s not.”

“Kakashi—”

“I’m on a mission tomorrow, probably for a few weeks,” Kakashi said.

“Hey!” Rin called as he ducked out the door. “You better come say hi when you get back!”

Alone, she settled back against the wall. He would come back. He had to. She was waiting for him, after all. He wouldn’t disappoint her.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Rin was twenty-one and she gave Kakashi the same old arguments about how he needed to quit being an ANBU operative. He gave her that long, blank stare that ANBU had taught him. He didn’t stop leaning on her, though. He was too chakra-drained. There was a reason she’d chosen this moment to yell at him; he was stuck with her.

“Nothing good has _ever_ come out of you joining ANBU,” Rin snarled as her final argument.

“Untrue,” Kakashi said calmly.

Rin blinked. “What?”

Kakashi smirked. She had his mask down to repair his broken nose so she got to see his thin, mobile mouth twist up with a secret.

“Talk, fucker,” she snapped, smacking his shoulder. Her other hand never wavered from where it was gently cupping cartilage.

He actually winked at her, a twitch of the scarred eyelid over his Sharingan. Rin honestly didn’t know why he kept covering his face up. He was so expressive. His reactions were hilarious, why would he ever want to hide that?

“I’ll get it out of you eventually,” Rin vowed.

“Sure,” Kakashi said. His mouth twisted even more, this time with disbelief.

Rin smacked him on the shoulder again but kept up her healing, rebuilding bridges and reopening air passages.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Rin was twenty-five and Kakashi finally left ANBU. She took him out drinking with Guy, Yugau, Yugau’s new girlfriend, Asuma and Kurenai, Genma, Kotetsu and his boyfriend, Anko… It was a big group.

“Are you punishing me?” Kakashi asked her when he saw the mob of people waiting for them, taking up four booths and still overflowing to nearby tables.

“A little,” Rin admitted. “You choice to quit was way overdue and I’m still mad you left because the Sandaime asked you to, not because of all the valid points I’ve been making for the past ten years.”

Kakashi sighed, shoulders slumping even more than usual. “You’re so evil.”

Rin pressed a kiss to the skin beside his uncovered eye. “Love you.”

He swatted her off. “Hey, don’t give people the wrong idea about us. I want to get lucky tonight.”

“Yugau’s dating someone now,” Rin reminded him.

“Yeah, I know, she introduced me. I don’t like her.”

Rin laughed. “You don’t like anyone your friends date!”

Kakashi slid into one of the precarious, rickety stools that required ninja training to perch upon comfortably. “All of you could do better.”

Rin smiled and perched herself on the stool across from him. “No being a dick to the people who care about you, got it?”

Kakashi gave her a supremely bored look. Then Guy darted up with shots and loudly proclaimed that this was a test of their drinking skills (again). Kakashi chose to drink through his mask, much to everyone’s delight. Rin smiled privately into her hand—she was probably the only person here to see him without a mask.

Rin spent the rest of the evening talking with Anko and steadily working her way towards shitfaced. The trouble with inviting high-ranking shinobi out for drinks was that they were often in demand for missions; more than half the group had gone home by midnight to ensure that they would be prepared for the life-or-death job they had to perform tomorrow. The party only took up two booths soon, and by two in the morning it was down to a single booth. 

Rin was pretty far gone at that point. She and Anko were trying to hash out a fuckbuddy schedule for the month but were having a hard time remembering the order of the days. Guy was asleep. Kakashi was talking to… someone… 

“Who’s that?” Rin asked Anko in a loud whisper. “I thought I knew everyone I invited.”

Anko tilted her head and squinted. “Ummmmm. He’s ANBU. Kino? Taro? Something.”

Rin stared. Kakashi had his head propped up on one hand and he was saying something that was probably sarcastic to a rather nondescript looking man with mousy hair and wide eyes. The man smiled. It was the kind of smile Rin recognized because she wore it around Kakashi a lot—an indulgent smile. This guy had heard it all before.

“Holy shit,” Rin whispered.

_______________________________________________________________________

 

Rin was twenty-seven and met up with the man Kakashi had been living with for years. He had introduced himself as Kinoe, though Kakashi called him Tenzo with a cheerfulness that indicated there was some deep history behind that name. Rin couldn’t help but smile at the way Kinoe looked at Kakashi in moments like that—such a wounded expression, and yet so fond.

“Hey, thanks for meeting me,” she said, stretching her arms over her head and feeling the click of her vertebrae sliding into place.

“Not a problem,” Kinoe said. He was standing a few centimeters further away than politeness dictated. He was cautious of her.

“Kakashi doesn’t like sparring with anyone but Guy these days,” Rin continued. She took a wide stance and began side-bending. “Plus, I always feel like he’s being condescending. Everything’s a lesson now that he’s got a genin team.”

Kinoe nodded.

“Anyway, taijutsu only,” she said, stretching out her shoulders. “If we do ninjutsu it’s gonna be a mess.”

“Why?” Kinoe asked.

“I don’t do it,” Rin said. “I’m a medical specialist, I can’t do big and flashy anymore. And your technique is something we don’t normally see.”

“It’s nowhere near the First’s level,” Kinoe said.

Rin flapped a hand dismissively. “It’s good, don’t even try and deny it. You built us that new hospital wing in a day. Most of the nurses would suck your dick at this point. _And_ they’d swallow.”

Kinoe cleared his throat. “Oh. I, uh. I see why you’re friends with Kakashi.”

Rin turned to face him and blinked. He was, of course, taller than she was. Brown hair, and he’d worn his ANBU uniform without the body armor to this informal sparring session. His eyes were wide and his face was mostly blank, but she could see a faint blush already fading. Sex jokes were apparently still enough to embarrass him. 

“I’m friends with Kakashi because I decided we were going to get married when I was six years old and I don’t give up on decisions that serious,” Rin said.

Kinoe’s eyebrows rose.

“I know too much about his sex life now, though, so we are just platonically married,” Rin continued. “In my mind, at least. I’ve never brought it up with him.”

“What?” Kinoe said after a moment. He sounded as if he’d thought very carefully and this was the best word he had found to articulate his current state of mind.

Rin grinned. “You ever know too much about someone to let them go, but also you know too much about them to want to marry their weird ass?”

After another careful, thoughtful moment, Kinoe shook his head.

“Well, I know too much about Kakashi and all his baggage, so we’d never work,” Rin said. “And I don’t want to fuck him. Besides, he likes you.”

“You are his oldest friend, along with Might Guy,” Kinoe said.

Rin shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know if I’d say he _likes_ us, though. More that he’s used to us.”

Kinoe cocked his head at her. “Of course he likes you, Medic Nohara. Why should you think otherwise? Kakashi mentions you often.”

“Oh?”

Kinoe nodded very firmly at her. “He values your friendship.”

“Doesn’t sound like Kakashi.”

“He’s been learning from the Jinchuriki,” Kinoe said.

“Has he?”

Kinoe’s smile was small and private as he said, “Yes.”

It hit Rin in the gut, that this man knew her best, oldest friend better than her. _Not better_ , she told herself briskly. _Just differently_. She shook the thought away and said, “So, taijutsu only, yes?”

“Yes, Medic Nohara,” Kinoe said.

Rin grinned and crouched low. “Ready?”


	2. Final Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is basically just Rin being salty throughout the entire Final Battle. Major fucking spoilers for the Final Battle.

Rin was thirty and it was the Fourth War and she was trying to stay in the new medical building that had been left half-finished in the new Konoha but she was needed elsewhere.

“Fuck,” she said. She covered her face. “Fucking fuckity—”

“We need you,” Tsunade said. “No excuses.” Tsunade’s strong, somehow perfectly manicured fingers wrapped around Rin’s wrists and held them tightly. “It’s dangerous out there, but you saw that danger can come to you, too. We need you on the battlefield. You’re the best medic out there apart from me and I’m going to be busy with the Raikage. So. Nohara Rin. Do your duty and help us.”

Rin yanked her way out of the woman’s grip. “Yes. I will.”

“Good,” Tsunade said. “You have half an hour to pack essentials. We’ll ship you out after the first wave. You will be near Konoha to aid our people, but help anyone with a forehead protector. I’m assigning Sakura to you, too.”

“Awesome,” Rin said grimly. 

It helped to think of the tents as part of Konoha. She’d worked out of them during the rebuild without any panic attacks, and the familiar green canvas was enough for her to pretend it was home. She kept herself busy. She slept when she couldn’t stand up anymore and she ate when her hands shook too hard to perform surgery. It kept her mind from the war raging around her. As far as the work she was doing, it was a standard day in Konoha. After a few days, she felt comfortably numb again, back in the groove of field medicine that she had fallen into when she was twelve. Even the pillar of fire blasting to the sky barely phased her. There were people to heal; that was worth her attention more than stupidly over-powered jutsu.

And then someone mentioned that the man they’d thought was Madara was looking for her.

“What?” she said.

Tenten tipped Neji onto a vacant cot. “Kakashi mentioned it to Guy-sensei. He said that someone should stick with you because the fake Madara was obsessed. The guy thought you were dead or something.”

Rin frowned. “I’m not dead.”

Tenten shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I overheard. Um. So, Neji got hit with—”

Rin ran a professional eye over the boy. “He’ll be fine. Give me ten minutes and he’ll tell you it himself.” She flexed her fingers before pressing them to the darkest stains on Neji’s clothes. “Go grab some food before you head out again, you’re showing chakra exhaustion already.”

“Yes, Medic,” Tenten said. She darted away.

Neji took eight minutes to patch up, which made Rin feel quite pleased. He was asking for a hairbrush by the time Rin left him to the nurses. She had another errand to run, one that might take a while.

It turned out she was a size too small for every spare set of ninja chainmail armor she tried on, so Rin jingled a bit as she jogged out of camp. She’d left her deputies in charge during her absence. Perhaps this was irresponsible, but it was necessary. If a sadistic warmonger was obsessed with her, it stood to reason that she would at least be able to draw his attention for someone else to chidori his ass. 

It was hard to find the center of the battle. There were a thousand skirmishes being fought. Columns of light expanded and ruptured like boils. Shinobi fought and died and kicked the shit out of monsters. Rin just kept dodging and yelling for Kakashi, ignoring how hard her heart was pounding.

She found him slumped by some rubble, a bloody X seeping through his vest.

“You complete idiot,” she said quietly. She pressed a hand to his chest and started healing him. “I should never let you out of my sight, _ever_. It doesn’t end well for you. You need to learn some fucking field medicine. Even a basic healing jutsu can help in a pinch.”

Kakashi looked at her blearily. Then he blinked his eyes into focus. “Shit.”

“Hm?” she hummed, raising an eyebrow. “I’m sure you know what I’m going to tell you, but your chakra reserves are—”

“Get out of here,” he said.

“What?”

“Leave. Now. I’m serious. I can’t—” He pushed her hand away and stared beseechingly at her with his mismatched eyes. “You have to go.”

“I heard Madara two-point-oh is asking for me,” she said, trying to get a hand back on his chest. “I’m not putting the shinobi world at risk just because some weirdo knows who I am.”

“It’s not some weirdo,” Kakashi said. “It’s Obito.”

“He’s dead, Kakashi.”

“No.”

Rin frowned. “You’re telling me our teammate didn’t die when we were eleven?”

“He didn’t.”

“And he’s now Madara two-point-oh?”

“Yes.”

Rin’s frown deepened. “You’re fucking with me.”

Kakashi pushed her hand away from his chest again and grabbed her shoulder, looking her dead in the eye. “I’m serious. He—”

“Kakashi!”

Sakura was yelling. Rin looked up and watched a cloud of sand descend from the sky, toting her most useful volunteer and the creepy ginger Kazekage. It looked like Naruto was there, too, but he was down, unmoving. Did Sakura have her hand _inside his chest cavity_?

“What the fuck is going on?” Rin asked.

“We need the Yondaime,” the Kazekage said. For once, his voice was urgent instead of monotone. He waved a hand at Sakura and Naruto. “We need to get the last half of the Nine-Tails chakra into Naruto or else he will die.”

“Right,” Kakashi said. He looked at Rin. “Okay, so don’t freak out, but they brought back Minato-sensei and he’s… not looking so hot right now. But he’s kicking serious ass so—”

“Could you hurry?” Sakura said, her voice chilly. She pinched Naruto’s nose with her free hand and added, “No one ever tell him about this.” She bent to administer CPR.

“Lucky no one brought the camera,” Rin managed. She glanced around and yep, there was that flashy coat her teacher thought was the coolest thing. The flames at the hem swirled around his ankles when the turned toward them. The whites of his eyes were black but there was a flash of clear blue in them that she remembered, even after all these years. 

“Hello, Rin,” he said quietly.

“Hi, Sensei.”

Minato gave her a small smile. “Could you help Sakura with my son, please?”

Rin was determined not to cry as she said, “Yes, Sensei.” She was older than him now, she realized. It hurt to know.

Kakashi squeezed her shoulder. “Keep out of sight, okay?”

Rin turned to Naruto without giving Kakashi an answer. She knew where she was needed right now. In a minute, maybe she’d be needed elsewhere. In front of Madara two-point-oh, perhaps. In front of Obito.

Sakura was doing admirable work. Her hand had to be cramping, squeezing a heartbeat for that long. Rin began tracing quick stasis seals on Naruto’s skin. 

“I’ll seal in the remaining half of the Nine-Tails chakra,” Minato said. Quietly, to Rin, he whispered, “Good work on these seals. You’ve learned well.” He pressed his single remaining hand to Naruto’s stomach and she watched the power roar behind his strange eyes for a moment. A shadow intervened before any progress could be made. It forced its way between Minato’s palm and his son. Minato staggered back, a frustrated noise tearing from his throat. “No!”

When Rin turned, she saw an old man half-shrouded in what looked like a grinning plastic trash bag. The half that was human was deathly pale from flesh to hair, scars twisting across the man’s face. One eye was a Sharingan. The black trash bag had an eye with the purple circles of the Rinnegan that Pain had possessed. The Sharingan, though… It was on the right side of his face.

Rin squinted. “Wait… you’re Obito?”

The Sharingan and the Rinnegan pulsed as they took her in. “And you’re supposed to be…?”

The voice was different, slow and cold where Obito had been such a desperate talker that he tripped over his own frantic sentences. Rin shook her head at him. “How many people have Nohara clan tattoos these days?” she said reasonably. 

Only the Sharingan widened. “…Rin?”

“Yeah. So stop blocking the Nine-Tails. We need it for Naruto to—”

“But you died!” Obito burst out. “I overheard your family in the woods, when I came back to the village. Your grandfather wept and said you were dead! Your mother said you were dead!”

Rin managed not to flinch. “Yeah, but they meant more in the ‘you’re dead to me’ sense. I gave up being a ninja and they were pretty pissed about that. But I’m alive.”

Obito’s mouth moved soundlessly.

“Let Minato-sensei save his kid,” Rin said. “C’mon, Obito. There have been so, so many dead kids. No more.”

“Please,” Minato added. He reached out to his slack-faced son.

The shadow slithered in the way.

“Goddammit, Obito!” Rin snarled.

“I can’t control him, Rin!” Obito screamed. It seemed to be true. His pale, scarred arm was struggling with the black trash bag, pulling at a tendril of it that seemed to have burrowed underground. “Zetsu has half my body! I’m so sorry, I can’t control—”

“Distract it,” Rin said to Kakashi.

“Right,” he said. He levered himself to his full height.

“I think not,” said a mild voice. 

Rin started sweating. She kept her eyes on Kakashi and deliberately did not look at the dark shape at the corner of her eye. Anyone who could talk so casually on a battlefield was worth fearing. 

The voice went on. “Obito, remember what we are fighting for as we— Who is she?”

Rin was having trouble breathing. Her chest felt tight and empty at the same time. She hadn’t experienced terror like this in years.

“This is Rin,” Obito said. “She… I was wrong. She’s alive.”

“Oh? And was this the version you wanted?” the voice asked. He sounded vaguely interested in the answer. “I thought your feelings were directed toward a less… mature form.”

“No, that’s not true,” Obito said fast, too fast.

Rin swallowed hard and kept her eyes on Kakashi. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking to where the threat was, to the massive dark shape that Rin refused to look directly at. This was why Kakashi was a good shinobi; he knew how to watch danger without flinching.

“I don’t think she’s the Rin you want,” the voice said. “I think you can make a better one. There’s something wrong about this one. Can’t even look a fellow ninja in the eye. And see how her hands shake? Not a medic, not a kunoichi, that’s for sure. They wouldn’t let her touch a wound. Too high-strung. This isn’t your Rin.”

She was still looking at Kakashi, but she was also seeing herself. Baggy under-armor pooling at her knees and elbows, covered by the coat she wore for surgeries because she hadn’t even tried to find a uniform that fit. Strands of premature grey in her hair, crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, not quite 160cm tall. Hands empty of everything, even kunai. Those big purple boxes on her cheeks, a reminder of the dead who considered her their shame. She hadn’t been what they wanted her to be. She hadn’t even come close. Nohara Rin, last of her sad little clan, shaking so hard she was rattling in too-big chainmail.

“What a fucking asshole you are,” she said quietly. “Whoever you are.”

“Ah, but she picked up some crude language like a shinobi,” the voice said. “Well. Like a lower-class shinobi.”

The idea of a ninja hierarchy based on something other than skill? Were shinobi supposed to have _manners_ now? Rin laughed once and turned to look. “Holy shit. He’s like the ghost of Jiraiya.”

“What?” Kakashi said.

“I mean, not quite because at least Jiraiya kept his hair out of his face,” Rin continued, waving at the solidly-built, unnaturally white man with a Rinnegan in one eye. 

“This is Uchiha Madara,” Obito whispered.

Rin squinted at the man critically, ignoring how hard her heart was pounding. Her mouth was dry but she managed to say, in a normal tone of voice, “You know, I don’t see it. I don’t see it at all. I think we could make a better one, to quote some complete dickhole. Or, better yet, he could just be dead like he should be after a few hundred years.”

No one spoke.

“I have work to do,” Rin said firmly. She leveled a glare at Obito. “Don’t you let that trash bag attached to your left side interfere. I have kids to save from yet another stupid fucking war.” And she turned her back, because she could trust Kakashi to keep her safe. She’d been trusting him for years. 

There was a clash behind her. There was always fighting. It wasn’t her business anymore. Rin was a part of the aftermath. She considered it the most disgusting, painful, miserable part of the shinobi life; it was her job to lessen all of that. 

She traced the final lines of her stasis jutsu on Naruto’s chest and crossed his hands over the seal. “Sakura, you should heal up that slit on his side now. I’m going to put him under hard. It’ll hold for half an hour if I leave a gap for the Fox’s chakra.”

Sakura was staring up at her. She slowly pulled her hand out of her teammate’s side, then pressed a glowing palm to the cut. The two of them were the only ones left crouching over Minato-sensei’s son. The Kazekage had joined what sounded like a pretty intense fight and it seemed like Minato-sensei was part of it, too.

“Cleaning up the mess while those idiots make it worse,” Rin muttered to herself as she finished the swirls of the last sign. She pressed her hand to Naruto’s still chest and let the chakra blaze.

“We have half an hour, then?” Sakura said.

“Yes.”

“We just have to give the Fourth Hokage time to seal in the remaining demon fox chakra?”

“Yes.”

Sakura nodded firmly and pushed herself to her feet. “Right.” She cracked her knuckles. “Then I’ll go—“

“And who’s going to watch him?” Rin said. 

Sakura blinked down at her. “You?”

“Me?” Rin snorted. She plopped back on her heels, knees sinking into the soft gold sand that surrounded Naruto. “I’m not a ninja, Haruno. I can’t do shit for this boy. I haven’t used a kunai since I was twelve.”

“What? But you’re head medic at the hospital,” Sakura said. “You have to be jonin-level to—“

“No you don’t,” Rin said. “Not anymore. I’m the first to make it as a chunin. Until Pain blew it up, I hadn’t left the village in almost twenty years. No way they’d promote me even as a tokubetsu, even if I use some of the most advanced chakra control techniques known to surgeons.”

Sakura’s eyes bulged. “What?”

“So you sit your ass down next to this kid and you _watch him_ ,” Rin finished. “Because I can’t. And this is Minato-sensei’s kid that I’m failing here. Give me fifteen minutes. Then you can try, because at that point we’ll have nothing left to lose.” She heaved herself to her feet, trying to ignore the shaking in her legs. It was only ever at times like these that Rin remembered how short she was. Sakura had to dip her chin to look her in the eye. There was nothing else for it, though. Rin squared her shoulders and turned to face the battle.

She blinked to see Obito come flying past her. Instinct born from years of taijutsu training sessions kicked in. She threw herself sideways and rolled, landing badly on an ankle and wincing at the flare of pain. It wasn’t sprained but it was miffed. Rin ignored it. 

There was a sort of rustle in the air, a bubbling, and when she glanced behind her she saw that Obito, Naruto, Sakura, and the golden sand had all vanished. The air had a haze like heat on concrete, but that faded as she watched. 

“What the fuck,” Rin said to herself. She looked around.

Guy was here, which was a good sign. Kakashi and Guy always did their best fighting together, whether it was on the same side against a common enemy or in that friendly rivalry way that Rin had always expected to turn into a weird marriage. Guy had opened some of his Gates, a green aura hanging heavy around him. This was less of a good sign; Rin had seen the exhaustion that came after such releases. Guy’s little clone student was also here, which could be an asset. The Kazekage, Minato, and Kakashi were still on their feet, but Minato was missing both his arms. Madara was untouched. He looked bored.

Rin darted up behind the clump of men. “So, what did you do to my patient and my best assistant, and what do you plan to do now?”

Guy whipped around, those immense eyebrows shooting up comically high. “Medic Rin! I did not expect to see your face on the battlefield this day!”

“Yep,” Rin said. “I didn’t expect me either but here we are. Anyone gonna answer my questions?” 

He didn’t looked away from Madara, but Kakashi said, “I used Kamui on them. That new Sharingan jutsu I told you about. It sends things to another dimension.”

“Ah,” Rin said. “And about the new plan?”

Kakashi’s shoulders stiffened. It was Guy who answered, saying, “I will attack him.”

“Only taijutsu works against him,” Minato explained.

Rin nodded thoughtfully. “Will six Gates be enough?”

“No,” Guy said. “It will not.”

Rin realized why Kakashi’s shoulders were so stiff. “Guy, you can’t! Six is the maximum safe number!”

Guy gave her a blinding smile. “Medic Rin, of course I can! I must! It is time for—“

“Cut it with the ‘blue beast’ shit,” Rin snapped. “Your jumpsuit is green and you—“

“Oh, no no no.” Guy was still grinning. It looked painted on. “I shall utilize the red beast for this.” 

He rested a hand on Lee’s head. Rin was not surprised to see that Lee was crying. 

“Take care, my student,” Guy said. “It is time for youth to hit full force, but it is not yet time for your flower to wither. Stay strong!”

“Yes, Guy-sensei!” Lee yelled.

Guy turned to Rin and gave her a serious look. His head tilted to the side, aimed at Kakashi’s stiff back. It was a question.

Rin nodded.

Guy pasted on his beaming smile again and clapped Kakashi on the shoulder. “Time to prove what a worthy opponent I have been for all these years, my wonderful rival!”

Kakashi gave him a look that Rin didn’t quite see. Guy blinked, smile fading for a moment. Rin leaned over to try and catch what expression had caused such a change, but Kakashi turned back to Madara before she could glimpse anything.

“Right,” Guy said. He turned to face Madara and shouted, “Eighth Gate of Death: Release!”

Rin winced.

She winced a lot during that battle. The sound of breaking bones was unmistakeable. It carried, too. The opponents darted around the trunk of the tree, a red flash of light against the terrible white-and-black monstrosity. Kakashi and Minato jumped in to force the two opponents to meet. It was awe-inspiring, terrifying, and the power crackling in the air made Rin’s molars hum.

It wasn’t enough.

“Shit,” Rin said, and started racing towards the place where Guy had fallen. Kakashi appeared to hook an arm around her waist and almost carried her, wind whipping past them. The white shape was getting closer and closer to Guy, though, and Rin yelled, “No!”

One of the black orbs circling Madara shot towards Guy.

“Kamui it, Kakashi!” Rin screamed, just as Kakashi’s hand clenched against her ribs and she heard him grunt with effort. His chakra was _low_ but she felt it flowing towards his eye, trying to—

There was a dull thud. Rin squinted. “Shit, is that Naruto? Did he block it? Oh my god.”

Kakashi stopped dead. Rin swung from his grip like a purse. She pinched his armpit and he dropped her without comment, eyes still focused completely on the battle.

“Kakashi?” she said.

“He’s all right,” Kakashi said. “They both— You need to get to Guy.” He grabbed her and ran again. Rin tried to help him, kicking her feet at the ground, but he was simply carrying her now, breathing harsh behind his mask. He deposited her by Guy and said, “I need to get Sakura and Obito out. Can you watch them?”

“Of course,” Rin said. “Go help your student.” She bent over Guy, wincing at the smell of burned meat. “Send the Kazekage here to make me a stretcher,” she added. When she looked around, though, Kakashi was gone. “Oh, wonderful.”

“I’m here, medic,” the Kazekage said, gliding up. “Where would you like them moved?”

“Guy-sensei!” Lee howled, his body surrounded by writhing green flame. He’d opened his Sixth Gate, which had to be unhealthy.

“Lee, put it away,” Rin said. “Naruto sealed some chakra in him so he won’t die, but we need to get him to surgery as fast as possible. Kazekage, send Guy and—” she turned to Lee. “Will you go with your sensei to medical and explain what happened?”

“Yes!” Lee said. Tears were pouring down his face but they seemed not to hinder him at all. His hands clenched with determination.

“Okay, can you fly them to…?” Rin squinted carefully at the stars. The Pole Star, then to the left of it was the constellation Kaguya, and the red star in the hem of her skirt was— Rin pointed. “Ten kilometers that way.”

“I can try,” the Kazekage said. “I have never tested how far I can send out a cloud of my sand with other people on it.”

“Take them yourself,” Rin said. “A Kage shouldn’t be on the field of battle.”

“It is my place,” the Kazekage said. “I want to protect Naruto.”

Rin raised an eyebrow. She cast a pointed glance to where the battle with Madara still raged. “I think Naruto’s holding his own, Kazekage. I’ve stabilized the worst of it. Please, take him.”

The Kazekage pressed his lips together tightly but after a moment, he nodded. Sand swept them up into the sky and away.

Rin couldn’t see where Kakashi had gone, or Minato-sensei, but she could see that Naruto was lit up orange again and he was back to fighting Madara. He wasn’t alone. Another boy had joined him, and it took an embarrassingly long moment for Rin to recognize Sasuke.

“The fuck’s wrong with his belt?” she muttered to herself. Truthfully, it wasn’t any sillier than what other ninjas wore, but it made her feel better to make such a minor, snarky comment. It made her feel more in control.

Who else was missing? Sakura and Obito. Rin sighed. She stood up and squinted around until she caught sight of Kakashi, slumped in some rubble. 

She jogged over to him, scrambling over roots the size of carts, and shook him by the shoulder. “Hey. Spit out Sakura, would you?”

He looked up at her, eyebrows knit with worry. He’d closed Obito’s eye. “I don’t know that I can, Rin.”

Rin’s mouth twisted. “Dammit, Kakashi, she’s stuck in there with Obito!”

“He wouldn’t hurt her.”

“He’s not what he was when we were kids, Kakashi!”

“He’s… He can’t have changed that much—”

“We’ve changed.”

“Not that much. You’re still trying to help everyone.”

“And you’re still a fucking grump who needs a hug,” Rin snapped. She put her hands on his back. “Okay, hold still. I’ll lend you—“

He jerked under her palms, spun almost completely around, and collapsed. Wind from something passing by whipped Rin’s hair into her mouth. She grabbed for Kakashi but all she got was air. Something was running down her face. Kakashi was on the ground. Rin’s heart stuttered.

“Kakashi?” she said, but her voice was so quiet. There was blood in her mouth. It wasn’t hers.

“Fuck,” Kakashi said. “Ow.”

“Oh thank you,” she whispered, a directionless prayer of gratitude. Somewhere close by, there was the sound of meat being sliced. She heard the air bubble and pop the way it had before, when Sakura and Obito and Naruto had vanished in space. Someone—it had to be Madara—had taken Kakashi’s Sharingan and was using Kamui. 

Kakashi took his hand away from the pit where his left eye had been. “What’s happening?”

Rin pressed her forehead to Kakashi’s shoulder and sank her fingers into the meat of his arm. “I don’t know anymore. This is too much. I thought—“

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You came here for me. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Holy shit, Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto yelled. “Are you okay?” He was jogging up, Sasuke right behind him. He burned bright orange, his ripped clothes now transformed into some kind of black onesie. Where the hell were the new outfits coming from?

Rin straightened up. One problem at a time. “All right, I’m gonna fix this, and then— Sakura!”

Sakura was standing, kunai out, eyes wide. She looked around her. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Rin said. “Madara took Kakashi’s eye. How’d you end up here?”

“Obito saved me,” Sakura said slowly. “He said to tell you—”

“I don’t even give a fuck,” Rin spat. She pressed her palm to Kakashi’s face and remembered that beautiful surgery she’d done, the intact tearduct, pretty good work for a field dressing. And she’d been eleven at the time. She’d been destined for this dirty, in-the-trenches healing. She had a palm full of blood and her chakra swirling in her best friend’s eye socket. There was no way she’d missed this kind of work but it was familiar to her, a role she’d played long ago and could still remember how to perform well.

A stubby, tan hand gently batted hers aside. “Here, Miss Tough Doctor, I can fix it.”

“What?” Rin said, momentarily bewildered as to how Naruto had come up with such a nickname for her. She quickly remembered that Naruto didn’t know any healing jutsu. “Hey, kiddo, let the medics do their work!” 

“There,” Naruto said happily. He stepped back. “Open your eye, Kakashi-sensei!”

Kakashi slowly cracked his scarred eyelid. A whole, pristine eyeball glittered there, the dark iris matching his right eye perfectly. He blinked.

Rin straightened and leaned into Naruto’s space, almost staring up his nose. “How’d you do that?”

Naruto shrugged. “Well, I kinda just, uh. Jeez, it’s hard to put into words. Okay, so I took some stuff from another part of—”

“We need to stop Madara,” Sasuke said. “He will be returning with both Rinnegan.” He sounded completely indifferent to whatever outcome their intervention resulted in. At his words, though, Sakura and Naruto turned outwards, their backs to Rin and Kakashi. The stances they took were protective.

“Hey, Sasuke,” Kakashi said. “Why are you doing this? What’s your new goal?”

There was a silence.

“I heard he wants be the next Hokage,” Rin offered.

Kakashi darted a look at her. “Seriously? He said that?”

“That’s what Tenten said.”

“Wish I’d been there,” Kakashi said. “I’d rather hear from him, though.”

“There isn’t time to explain myself to you,” Sasuke said.

“Ah,” Kakashi said. “You know, you’re right.” He was looking past their little group, eyes on a flat space of ground. “He’s coming. There.”

“Fuck, motherfuck,” Rin whispered. 

Kakashi put a hand on her shoulder. And then Madara was there, a Rinnegan in each eye, and Obito slumped behind him. That asshole Madara was grinning. He’d won and they knew it. Obito’s right eye was closed, the left eye switched for a Rinnegan instead of a Sharingan. The iris stood stark and red against the black of the monster attached to him.

“That boy Obito is crying inside, like a child, for a happy ending to this,” Madara said casually. “He’s going to enjoy the Tsukiyomi. It will be all he ever wanted.”

Sakura took a step back. Her hands were twitching, her shoulders tense and her breaths shallow and quick. Kakashi sighed a little bit. Rin shot a look at him as Sakura took another step back. Kakashi was watching her with sympathy.

_You don’t understand people_ , Rin thought to herself. _You don’t understand how people can change, for the worse and for the better_.

“She’s not running,” Rin whispered to him. Kakashi glanced up at her, eyebrows raised, and Rin explained, “She’s just getting space for a run-up.”

Rin heard the girl’s bones creak as her hand tightened into a fist. The air was filled with a flavor of chakra that put Rin in mind of antiseptic and clean beds, and then Sakura exploded forward, diving past her teammates toward the monster that was waiting for them across the field. “Cover me!” Her boys were left gaping after her. Even Sasuke had an expression.

“Good girl,” Rin said. She squatted down by Kakashi and smacked him on the back a few times. “Hey. Anything else hurt?”

“A lot,” he said quietly. He rested his fingertips right beneath his newly restored eye. “No more Sharingan?”

“No.”

“Hm. I don’t think Naruto knows how eyeballs are supposed to be shaped. Everything’s kind of…”

“Blurry?” Rin offered. “Monochrome? Are there spots in your vision? Are you seeing auras, or double images?” She was reaching for a penlight she didn’t have with her. She sucked her fingertip for a moment and summoned a bright, steady flame, then grabbed Kakashi’s chin. “Hold still, I want to check pupil dilation.”

“This is not the time, Rin,” Kakashi said.

“There’s nothing more you and I can do. Literally. You’re drained all to hell and I can’t fight.”

“We’re useless.”

“No,” Rin said. Kakashi rolled his eyes. A part of Rin noted that the coordination between his eyeballs was impressive, but a larger part of her was feeling fairly pissed. She glanced back at the fight—all the kids were standing, that was good—and said, “You kicked a lot of ass to reach this point, Kakashi. I’ve worked hard at what I do, too. But probably the most important thing we did was teach. These kids have worked hard. They’re going to do better than our best and this undead asshole is going to die, once and for all.”

“Did you take motivational speech lessons from Naruto?”

“Just because the kid’s an idealist doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

“I— Oh.” Kakashi was looking over her shoulder, up into the sky. “Oh no.” She could see the red light of the moon reflected in his eyes.

So the worst had come to pass. Rin’s stomach sank. But there was still hope; there had to be. 

Rin held on to the edges of Kakashi’s flak vest and tucked her head under his chin. “I don’t want to see.”

“Yeah,” Kakashi said. His arms wrapped around her. “You really don’t.”

The teens were huddling around them, Naruto arguing with Sasuke’s monotone. Rin shut down inside of herself, closing into the quiet. She was the best field medic anyone was ever going to encounter, but this? This was gods and demons, this was a bloody scarlet moon and jutsu that hadn’t been seen since times of legend. This was hell. 

Kakashi’s chin was digging into her head, his arms were tight enough to hurt, and Rin wouldn’t want this world, this violent land with all its deadly, bellicose ninja clans and steady friendships, to end any other way. It was a small and selfish thought but she held on to her friend and breathed. He would keep her safe. She’d been trusting Kakashi to be all right for years. She had no reason to doubt him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what happens next because I just watch the anime and don't read the manga (though I know some spoilers and I don't mind knowing more). Maybe I'll come add a chapter when the anime ends and we figure out what happened to end the battle? Maybe not. That wasn't really the point of this story anyway.


End file.
